Couples' recycling business takes off

From one center to nine

5:17 PM,
Nov. 29, 2012

Elise An, 17, left, a senior and president of Recycling for Students for a Better Earth Club, a group from Salinas High School, recycles plastics and cans collected at her school Tuesday at Salinas Recycling on South Main Street.

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In trash, in empty aluminum cans, in plastic bottles drained of their cool contents, and in other used containers, Hernando Calderon and his wife, Connie, thought they saw gold, or at least a golden opportunity.

To test their hunch, they launched a recycling business.

"Out of our garage," Calderon said of the origins. "I'd go out and collect the empty containers off the street. I'd find them around the fields where farm workers were." ...